Limes with Orange

It seems that blog marketing is an internet trend that is growing at an exponential rate. And this trend seems to be quite controversial, sometimes with good reason. Not all paid blogging sites are equal, nor are all paid bloggers. But I've been with PayPerPost since November and think they're pretty darn good.

The four reasons I'm so happy over there: (1) I can make money without compromising my integrity, by only taking opportunities that suit my blog and giving my honest opinions about them; (2) I get a chance to discover new sites that are often still in beta, so I'm in on the ground floor; (3) I have learned so much about promoting my blog from the very helpful posties who visit the forums; and, last but certainly not least, (4) I've met some GREAT people through PayPerPost... other posties that I've never met in person but would actually consider friends. Win-win-win-win.

And yes, this post itself is sponsored but remember what I say in my disclosure policy: "The only thing that will ever be influenced by any compensation received is the topics I choose to write about. My words and opinions are my own and not for sale."

Labels: blogging, payperpost

As I've mentioned before, I've been picking up the occasional PayPerPost (PPP) opportunity and blogging about it. It seemed like a symbiotic relationship. I could choose to blog only about things I would want to blog about anyway, I got to discover new websites that I might not have discovered on my own, plus I made a little spending money while helping to advertise things that I thought were worth advertising.

No more. They've just done this whopping "upgrade" that is so glitchy that it's not even funny. I mean, there's Beta and then there's just not-even-remotely-ready-for-use. I spent the time to write an interesting and funny (I thought) post for something that intrigued me only to lose out on the opp because of a glitch that kept repeating until the opp was no longer available. And could I get any response about why this was happening? Of course not!

At the very, very least, PPP should have written a detailed post about the changes, the new features and how to use them, along with spelling out new requirements either as required by PPP or ones that can be requested by advertisers. And this should have happened BEFORE they launched this new glitchy version. (Can we say "common sense" boys and girls?!)

And as if the glitches weren't bad enough, advertisers can now insist that bloggers include a new "disclosure" badge (which is bullshit, not that I have ANY problem with disclosure but I already have a perfectly clear disclosure policy, thank you very much) and this new badge would create a pop up when your mouse rolls over it (I HATE pop ups) and include content that the blogger (i.e. me) has no control over. No fracking thanks!

Unless somebody sorts this crap out soon and dumps some of these obnoxious new ideas, any respect I might have had for PPP will have evaporated. They'll just be blatant, obnoxious advertisement brokers who don't give a shit about quality or integrity. Just proving that all the naysayers out there were right all along. So c'mon... get your act together guys!

Addendum: I wanted to give PPP the benefit of the doubt and went back to their site today and saw that there was something interesting that I wanted to post about, but now I'm getting a new glitch... some bullshit about my host url hostname not matching the selected blog. And I'm not the only one with this problem. WTF?!?! Now that's two fracking posts that I wasted my time writing.

Labels: blogging, payperpost, rant

As I think I mentioned previously, I'm looking at how to up my Google Page Rank a bit (and I confess, it's mainly because I recently lost out on a couple of interesting PayPerPost opportunities that required a PR of 4 or higher). So I was checking out various search engine optimization (SEO) companies and I landed on this Apogee Search Blog, which was actually kind of interesting in a geeky sort of way. So I started browsing around the site and came across this page about how it's an Ethical SEO and it guarantees to never use prohibited or questionable practices such as:

Mirror pages and sites
Throwaway or shadow domains
Cloaking
Doorway pages
Link farms
Improper redirects
Automatic submissions systems
Hidden or invisible links/text
Special browser software/toolbars
Paid search advertising arbitrage
Keyword stuffing
Spyware, adware or other scumware

While it was comforting to read that this firm doesn't use these practices, I found it rather horrifying to think that others do. I suppose if I were actually considering hiring an SEO, this would be very useful information to have. But since I'm just looking for simple, harmless promotion ideas… well, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Labels: blogging, payperpost

Okay, I'm gonna be straight with you here... this is going to be a shameless "pick me, pick me!" sort of post. See, HP is giving away digital cameras to their favourite blog posts about their new, supercool, 6 megapixel digital cameras and photo printers. And while I do actually (finally) own a digital camera, it was a free gift with purchase and a brand that I've never heard of... so I think you can figure out for yourself just what kind of quality we're talking about: zip, zilch, nada (nada heck of a lot). It did, however, allow me to make this video of dubious quality with which I am begging HP to put me out of my Luddite misery and favour me with their top of the line camera AND a photo printer to boot. (Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!)

I'll admit that it's a little embarrassing, as an aspiring filmmaker, to have this be the first public screening of anything I've ever "filmed" but hey... beggars can't be choosers, right? (Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!) And my cat pitched in to help make this wee "film" a wee bit more interesting...


This post was brought to you by HP.

Labels: animals, hp, payperpost

...If someone was offering me a thousand bucks and all those little electronic perks.

As I've mentioned before, I am currently picking up the occasional PayPerPost opportunity. Well, PayPerPost has these Postie Patrols, where they ambush someone with a video camera and a bunch of challenges. If you complete all your challenges, you can win cool stuff ("cool stuff"... that's a technical term, dontcha know).

So I watched the video from the most recent HP sponsored Postie Patrol (the cool stuff in this case was digital camera stuff from HP, for which you might want this handy link to Digital Photo Printing). It was actually quite entertaining. Like a mini-reality show where you actually start rooting for the contestant. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself:


This post was brought to you by HP.

Labels: hp, payperpost